An interview with Isobel McKenzie-Price

Isobel McKenzie-Price started her journalistic career as a junior on a fashion magazine and has worked her way up to become an award-winning editor. The founding editor of award-winning US women's magazine All You, she now occupies the role of editorial director at Britain's best-selling magazine, Ideal Home and also overseas IPC Media's online homes network. She currently lives in Sussex with her husband and four children. Here, the high-flying editor talks cows, computers and reveals her own home style.

My big passions have always been… literature, art, science and technology. It's no surprise I ended up in magazines. I‘ve been making my own books and magazines from as young as I can remember.

I got where I am today… by working for fantastic bosses who gave me a chance to do things I'd never done before. I would say ‘yes' to anything, then worry afterwards whether I could pull it off. Now I try to pass on their generosity, and one of the best parts of my job is seeing someone realise their natural talents and just shine.

My career low came when… I came back from maternity leave at another publishing company and found my job had been given to someone else during a company reshuffle. I wasn't the only person it happened to, but to be treated this way by a company I'd worked hard for and passionately believed in was the moment I truly grew up.

I am a serious techie… 20 years ago when, after months of asking for a (then, very new and scarce) computer, I got fed up with waiting, dragged a load of abandoned pieces out of cupboards, assembled my own PC, loaded it with scavenged software and got it working by myself. I was eight months pregnant at the time, and the IT department just couldn't work out who'd done it for me….

Being asked to refresh the Ideal Home brand was… a wonderful challenge. It's IPC's flagship homes brand and is over 90 years old, an iconic homes title and market leader. It's also IPC's most democratic homes title with a broad mainstream market appeal.

A great editor has…  vision and the ability to articulate it. I really wish I had that combination. If I had to pick an editor I get great value out of every time I hear him speak, it would be Conor McNicholas, Top Gear and ex NME. He never wastes a word….

The best piece of advice I've ever been given was in… Life on Mars. It has a quote for everything: ‘If you can't feel it, it's not real' is my favourite. You can focus group, analyse and measure all you like, but gut instinct still has a huge amount of power.

My own home style is… distressed Cape Cod - big sectional sofa, kids, cats, woodburning stove, my great-grandmother's homemade kitchen table as a desk. Lots of enamel ware, and comfy kitchen chairs because that's where people hang out for hours at a time.

I can't live without my… iMac - I use it for everything. And my KitchenAid, because I love making bread and it's brilliant for that. I also have an unhealthy addiction to stationery - which is odd, as I spend most of my life using a keyboard or a touchpad.

If I could be anywhere in the world right now, I'd be by… Waimea Bay, on the North Shore, Hawaii. I'd be swimming in the lagoon, with the turtles. Then I'd climb out, hop on a magic carpet and be transported to the Tardis console room where I'd set the controls for eSpace (that's a really nerdy reference).

You might not know this, but… I can milk a cow by hand, which explains my favorite blog (see below).

The person I most admire is … Martha Nelson, editor of the Style and Entertainment Group at Time Inc. is a magazine genius - a visionary editor's editor. One of my favourite literary heroines is YT in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. She is so badly behaved, brave and funny.

My favourite blog is… Ree Drummond's thepioneerwoman.com - it's just so funny, and practical and has pictures to die for. She's the sexy supermom Midwest version of Martha Stewart. She lives my fantasy life…

Emily Jenkinson

21 May 2010